Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, #4)(101)

A few seconds later:

The law bot came looking for you in my office this morning. I’ve buried her body under your desk. You’ll have to clean that up when you get back.



My snort cuts into the quiet room.

Tell Mason. He’s better at cleaning than I am.



How is it up there?



Women are throwing themselves at me. You better get here quick.



I wait and wait and . . . it says “read,” but there’s no answer coming. I’m expecting some snide remark, calling me a pig or something. But the longer I wait, the more I’m starting to think that was a boneheaded thing to say. I do wish she’d just drop everything and race up tonight, but now she probably thinks I’m up here screwing girls.

Does she care, though?

I hesitate for just a second and then type out:

The funeral’s on Friday. Mama wants you to come.



I wait. She’s read it.

Still no answer.

“Fuck!”

I guess that came out a little too loud, because there’s a knock on my door a moment later. “You’re not doing anything gross in my old room, are you?” Elsie asks.

“I wish!” I holler back.

“Are you decent? Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” I make sure my sheets are covering the vitals as the door creaks open and my sister walks in.

“What’s wrong?” Elsie always seemed to like being smack dab in the middle of four brothers. Josh and Rob harassed the guys at school for looking at their “cute little sister,” but then she’d turn around and do the same for Jake and me, playing the protective sister. The funny thing is, in the end all four of us were protecting her. She was in the middle of a big Morris sandwich, with brothers chasing off *s from all angles.

“Ah, nothing. I’m just an idiot.”

Crawling onto the bed, she falls back to share my pillow. “Who are you texting?”

“Reese.”

“Ah yes. The friend who visits your mother with you on weekends and spends the night in the same bed.”

I shrug. “This is me we’re talking about, remember?”

She rolls her eyes. “How could I forget? All of my senior friends were asking me to hook them up with my dorky freshman brother.”

“I wasn’t so dorky to them, was I? How’s Shelley Armstrong, by the way? You still talk to her?” Shelley was Elsie’s hot best friend in high school.

There’s a pause and then, “That wasn’t a rumor?”

I feel the wide grin stretch across my face. “At Butcher’s party after the homecoming game. It earned me legendary status with the guys pretty quick.”

“She lied to me!” Elsie punches me in the arm. “You’re lucky I love you so much, you pig.”

“Funny. That’s what Reese calls me. You two would probably get along well.”

I feel her eyes on me. “Is she the reason you turned down Miss Florida today?”

“What?” I feel my brow pinch.

“Hayley Parker? She won the state beauty pageant last year.”

“Seriously? . . . Huh.” Picturing those legs, I mumble. “Not surprised. She definitely wasn’t looking to solve world peace out there today, though—I can tell you that much.”

Elsie snorts. “I couldn’t believe it when Mom told me you were back within five minutes of her sending Hayley out. That sealed the deal in her eyes. Her little Benjamin’s in love,” she croons.

“That didn’t mean anything,” I deny, though everyone under this roof seems to know I’m lying. “Hell, I just lost my father yesterday. I’m just not in the mood.”

She barks out with laughter, sounding a lot like me. “Oh, bullshit! Do you remember when Cheechee died?”

“Of course I do! Man, I loved that dog. He was the best.” I still remember the way my stomach hit the ground as I was rounding the bend in the road, closing out a five-mile run, and found his broken, still body lying on the shoulder. He had been hit by a car.

“Exactly. You carried that dog all the way up the driveway in your arms, bawling your eyes out.”

“We all cried. Even Josh!” Our oldest brother was never big on showing emotion.

“But you sure weren’t crying later that night at that party, when I found you in the back of some girl’s car with her head in your lap.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh yeah. She was consoling me. You should have seen the look on your face.” That was the problem with all of us being so close in age. We went to a lot of the same parties and knew all the same people.

Elsie rolls her eyes. “Well, then don’t tell me you would have had a problem getting into the mood with a beauty queen when a man you hate is finally dead.”

It’s a somber reminder of why she’s here, stifling our laughter.

“And what would Mama have done if I had gone for it?”

Elsie starts giggling. “She said she was going to drive out in the dune buggy and beat your ass if you weren’t back within half an hour.”

Just the image of a fifty-one-year-old Mama racing around in that thing has me bursting out with laughter again.

Nudging in closer, Elsie asks softly, “So, tell me about her. What’s she like?”